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Time Hacks for Writers · The Daily Writer

0:05
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Writer.
0:08
SPEAKER_00: Each weekday, we bring you a short lesson that helps you live out the four practices of a great writer creativity, consistency, courage, and connection.
0:17
SPEAKER_00: Here on the weekend edition, we take a deeper dive into those topics through conversations with writers, as well as teaching that helps us apply what we're learning.
0:26
SPEAKER_00: For more, you can visit us at dailywriterlife.com.
0:31
SPEAKER_00: So here's a question.
0:32
SPEAKER_00: What if you took a poll of a hundred people who started writing a book but they never finished it?
0:38
SPEAKER_00: How many of them would say that a lack of time was a major factor in them not finishing their book?
0:45
SPEAKER_00: Well, my guess is that at least 90 of them would say that's probably the case.
0:49
SPEAKER_00: It seems like almost everybody we talk to these days is busy all the time, and you probably feel the same way also.
0:57
SPEAKER_00: If that describes you, I think you're going to love this episode where we break down seven time hacks that'll help you save time and write more efficiently and effectively.
1:07
SPEAKER_00: Now, before we get into that though, I want to take a few minutes to talk about some wins from our daily writer community.
1:13
SPEAKER_00: I wasn't able to do this last weekend because last weekend we had two interview episodes, and I typically don't do the wins on interview episodes because I really just want to focus on the guest.
1:23
SPEAKER_00: But since this is a solo episode, I want to take some time to talk about some really, really cool wins from our daily writer community.
1:31
SPEAKER_00: So what I want to do is actually break these up into two categories, and I want to talk about two or three super quick wins from different folks in the community and then share a principle and what we can learn from them.
1:45
SPEAKER_00: So the first category involves taking consistent small steps to achieve your goal.
1:50
SPEAKER_00: So let me share three wins from the last couple weeks in this community related to that topic.
1:57
SPEAKER_00: First of all, Ashley mentioned that she did the edits from her editor for her book of short stories that's coming out very, very soon.
2:05
SPEAKER_00: Now, that may not seem like that's a massive step, just doing the edits that the editor sent back to you, which means going through those edits and integrating those into the book and approving them or not approving them and so forth.
2:18
SPEAKER_00: So that may not seem like a big huge thing, but it really is because editing is one of those things that people sometimes get hung up on.
2:27
SPEAKER_00: Editing is usually the worst part of the book writing process.
2:30
SPEAKER_00: You know, the creative process is lots of fun.
2:32
SPEAKER_00: The the publishing process where you're you're figuring out your cover design and you're setting up your Amazon stuff, all that's lots of fun.
2:40
SPEAKER_00: You know, the the launch is fun because people are buying your book and and all those things.
2:44
SPEAKER_00: But the most painful part is usually getting through the second half of your first draft and then the editing process where you're just slugging it out week by week and month by month.
2:55
SPEAKER_00: And particularly when you send that that draft to your editor and you get that that draft back with sometimes you know hundreds, uh, or if it's a longer book, even thousands of edits, that can be a little overwhelming.
3:08
SPEAKER_00: So I want to recogn recognize the great work that Ashley's doing here by just going through these edits in her book of short stories.
3:15
SPEAKER_00: That's a really important but often overlooked aspect of what it takes to put a great book out there.
3:22
SPEAKER_00: So Ashley, well done.
3:24
SPEAKER_00: Great job.
3:25
SPEAKER_00: Phyllis mentioned that she crafted and filmed three more Bible stories.
3:30
SPEAKER_00: She's got three to go, and after that, she will have filmed stories from Genesis to Revelation.
3:37
SPEAKER_00: Now, again, here we see the power of taking small, consistent steps to achieve a major goal.
3:43
SPEAKER_00: This is really, really cool.
3:44
SPEAKER_00: And if you're not a person of faith or you're not super familiar with the Bible, the Bible has 66 books in it.
3:50
SPEAKER_00: Some of some of the books are pretty long, some of the books in the Bible are very, very short, but there's still 66 books in the Bible, and that's a massive achievement to have gone through the whole Bible and filmed stories for each section of the Bible.
4:04
SPEAKER_00: Now, I don't know exactly how many stories Phyllis has filmed, but I know it's been a lot.
4:09
SPEAKER_00: So she has really been working toward this for a while, and taking those small, consistent actions and getting those regular wins has been a really important thing for her.
4:17
SPEAKER_00: So, Phyllis, way to go.
4:19
SPEAKER_00: Great job.
4:20
SPEAKER_00: And then Ken, who's a part of our group, mentioned that his biggest win recently was probably posting his 12th straight weekly post on his blog.
4:29
SPEAKER_00: And he says, Amidst all that I have been involved in, I continue to enjoy writing on my blog.
4:36
SPEAKER_00: And that's really, really cool.
4:37
SPEAKER_00: Again, it's the power of the these daily or regular or weekly consistent steps toward achieving something that's greater.
4:46
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's awesome.
4:47
SPEAKER_00: So great job, guys.
4:49
SPEAKER_00: I think that is uh absolutely fantastic.
4:52
SPEAKER_00: Now, I also want to mention one more.
4:53
SPEAKER_00: Actually, I just overlooked this real quick.
4:55
SPEAKER_00: Uh, one more in this category of small consistent steps, and that is uh my friend Jim, who's a part of our group, he received a print copy of his novel that releases on April 15th.
5:06
SPEAKER_00: So, Jim, awesome job.
5:07
SPEAKER_00: Way to go, buddy.
5:08
SPEAKER_00: Um, that is a really, really cool thing.
5:11
SPEAKER_00: When you get to hold a print copy of your book in your hands for the first time, that's a very, very special moment.
5:15
SPEAKER_00: And no matter how many books you've written, getting to do that never ever gets old because it's just such a really, really cool thing.
5:22
SPEAKER_00: So Jim has been working on this book for months, actually for much longer than months, but uh over the last three or four months or so, he's really been cranking it out and getting a lot done on that.
5:33
SPEAKER_00: So, Jim, great job.
5:34
SPEAKER_00: Way to go.
5:36
SPEAKER_00: Now, there's another category that I want to mention here as far as our daily writer community wins, and that is this topic of treating your writing like a business.
5:46
SPEAKER_00: So we have the creative side, but then we have the business side of what we do as writers.
5:50
SPEAKER_00: And here's a couple of really cool wins from our community the last couple weeks.
5:54
SPEAKER_00: Lynn mentioned that her biggest win was getting a flowchart for her business expansion up on her whiteboard.
6:01
SPEAKER_00: And she also said, My most important goal is to get influencers and podcasters on my platform.
6:07
SPEAKER_00: So getting that flow chart for her business expansion posted on the whiteboard was a really important step toward that.
6:14
SPEAKER_00: So, Lynn, fantastic job thinking like a marketer and thinking like a business owner and getting that posted.
6:20
SPEAKER_00: Well done.
6:21
SPEAKER_00: And then MJ mentioned that her biggest win from this past week was making huge inroads to a new facet of her business.
6:29
SPEAKER_00: And that's awesome because as writers and business owners, we've always got to be thinking of different ways that we can serve people.
6:35
SPEAKER_00: It's not just one thing of just writing books, it's not just one thing of doing only client work, it's not just one thing of any specific thing.
6:44
SPEAKER_00: It can be a variety of things that you bring together inside of your business under one larger umbrella.
6:49
SPEAKER_00: So great job, ladies.
6:51
SPEAKER_00: Uh, appreciate you taking consistent action and treating your writing not just as a hobby, but as a business.
6:58
SPEAKER_00: And we've all got to continue working on figuring out systems and confronting our insecurities about being a business person.
7:05
SPEAKER_00: This is hard for us sometimes as creatives and as writers and authors, because there's a part of all of us that just wants to seclude ourselves inside of our writing cave and, you know, kind of hide away and create this stuff and put it out into the world and not have to mess with all the other stuff.
7:23
SPEAKER_00: At least that's that's most writers I know, and that's certainly my impulse sometimes as well.
7:27
SPEAKER_00: But if we're going to have a real business that makes real money and gives us real financial security and stability, we have to look at our writing not just as a creative endeavor, but as a business as well.
7:39
SPEAKER_00: So all these wins that I've shared from these past couple weeks in the Daily Writer community are super great examples of people who are taking consistent action to achieve a goal and treating their writing like a business.
7:51
SPEAKER_00: So, way to go, guys.
7:52
SPEAKER_00: I'm so proud of you.
7:53
SPEAKER_00: And it is so is so exciting to see your progress.
7:56
SPEAKER_00: And if you're listening to this and you're not a part of our daily writer community, I would absolutely love for you to check it out and consider joining us.
8:03
SPEAKER_00: You can do so at dailywriterlife.com slash community.
8:10
SPEAKER_00: Okay, that was a ton of fun.
8:11
SPEAKER_00: Let's get on to the main topic of this episode, which is time hacks for writers.
8:18
SPEAKER_00: You know, as I'm recording this, uh, I'm in my office, and as I look around my office, I see lots of great artwork.
8:25
SPEAKER_00: On my wall to the right are movie posters for two of my favorite films, which are Citizen Kane and The Searchers.
8:31
SPEAKER_00: Now, The Searchers is actually an older, well, Citizen Kane is an older film too.
8:35
SPEAKER_00: The searchers is an older film starring John Wayne.
8:38
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you haven't seen that, but those are both classic movies.
8:41
SPEAKER_00: On the wall to my left, there's a print of Rembrandt's masterpiece, The Return of the Prodigal Sun.
8:48
SPEAKER_00: On the bookshelf behind me are some models for some of my favorite vehicles from movies, including the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars, the DeLorean from Back to the Future, and the Mach 5 from the cartoon Speed Racer.
9:03
SPEAKER_00: The bookshelves behind me hold hundreds of books and DVDs, if you remember what DVDs are.
9:09
SPEAKER_00: And the iPhone on my desk, as well as my Apple Watch, they contain hundreds of songs, podcast episodes, and apps and all kinds of cool stuff.
9:18
SPEAKER_00: And the MacBook I'm using to record this podcast episode is a work of art in itself as well.
9:24
SPEAKER_00: And you know, all these things were made by creative people who finished their work.
9:29
SPEAKER_00: These products and these works of art began as ideas in somebody's mind, but they didn't stay that way.
9:36
SPEAKER_00: Their creators worked on the ideas, usually collaborating with others, and then the ideas began to take shape.
9:42
SPEAKER_00: But most importantly, they didn't just come up with the ideas or work on the ideas, they actually finished their work.
9:50
SPEAKER_00: They completed those ideas and created an actual product.
9:54
SPEAKER_00: Or to put it in terms that Seth Godin would appreciate, they shipped their work.
9:59
SPEAKER_00: And this is often where we get hung up as writers.
10:02
SPEAKER_00: We have a great idea for a book, for a blog post, or a story, and we start to work on it and we build momentum, and we might even tell a few others about the exciting stuff that we're working on.
10:13
SPEAKER_00: But then slowly, as we work on it, we lose a little bit of that excitement and we lose steam.
10:19
SPEAKER_00: Life gets busy, we lose focus, and we don't finish what we started.
10:23
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes our writing ends up like the movie Superman Lives.
10:28
SPEAKER_00: Now, you might say, What is Superman Lives?
10:31
SPEAKER_00: You know, Zack Steiner's Justice League just came out.
10:34
SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, there's been a couple of Superman movies the last few years: Man of Steel and Batman vs.
10:40
SPEAKER_00: Superman.
10:40
SPEAKER_00: What's the deal with Superman Lives?
10:42
SPEAKER_00: I've never heard of that movie.
10:43
SPEAKER_00: Well, you've never heard of it because that was a movie that was never actually made.
10:49
SPEAKER_00: Way back in the 1990s, Warner Brothers decided it was time to resurrect the Superman franchise, and they cycled through a few directors before landing on Tim Burton, who had given the studio great success with his Batman movies.
11:02
SPEAKER_00: And various drafts of the script were created, sets and costumes were made, and Nicolas Cage was set to star as the Man of Steel himself, Superman.
11:12
SPEAKER_00: But after years of development and endless problems, the studio shut down production on Superman Lives.
11:18
SPEAKER_00: A huge amount of time and energy, not to mention millions of dollars, totally went down the drain and the movie was never made.
11:26
SPEAKER_00: And what could have been one of the most interesting movies from the 1990s ended up as just another might have been.
11:35
SPEAKER_00: Well, each one of us probably has a might have been story.
11:39
SPEAKER_00: It might not be a big Hollywood movie, but I'll bet that you've started something that you would have liked to finish, but you never did.
11:46
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it was a book.
11:47
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe it was even something like a piece of music, a painting, or something that you're building or you're making with your hands.
11:54
SPEAKER_00: You want to finish it, but you just can't seem to find the time.
11:58
SPEAKER_00: Well, my goal in this podcast episode is to help you turn your might have bins into reality.
12:04
SPEAKER_00: But to do that is going to require time, which is your most precious commodity.
12:08
SPEAKER_00: So in this episode, we're going to look at seven specific strategies to help you make the most of your time.
12:15
SPEAKER_00: And you know, we all have a limited amount of time, so it's really, really vital that we make the most of it.
12:20
SPEAKER_00: So let's dive into seven tactics that are going to help us be more productive and use our time wisely so we can get more writing done.
12:28
SPEAKER_00: You ready?
12:28
SPEAKER_00: Let's dive in here.
12:30
SPEAKER_00: Number one is track your time.
12:33
SPEAKER_00: Now, let me ask you a question.
12:34
SPEAKER_00: How can you make better use of your time if you don't know where it's going in the first place?
12:40
SPEAKER_00: You know, most of the time we go about our days totally unaware of how we actually spend our time.
12:46
SPEAKER_00: How many times have you allocated a few minutes to check email only to look at the clock and discover that two hours have gone by and you're still not finished with your inbox?
12:56
SPEAKER_00: Anytime that you keep a time log, you can immediately see where your time's going.
13:00
SPEAKER_00: And if you're like me, you probably will be surprised that you're spending a lot of time on things that aren't very productive.
13:06
SPEAKER_00: We all assume that we're being productive, but when you actually record it and it's there in black and white, many times we discover that we're not being so productive.
13:15
SPEAKER_00: So here's how to do this.
13:17
SPEAKER_00: You can do it a couple different ways.
13:18
SPEAKER_00: You can keep a time log with a simple simple pen and paper, or you can go the modern route and use some kind of an app like Toggle, which is T O G G L, or there are others as well.
13:30
SPEAKER_00: I would recommend that you just get a simple piece of paper and you write down your time and 15-minute increments for a couple weeks.
13:38
SPEAKER_00: You can, you know, get a spreadsheet and record this if you want to.
13:41
SPEAKER_00: And when you do this, it's actually surprising where your time goes.
13:44
SPEAKER_00: And I've done this a couple times over the years, for a couple weeks at a time.
13:49
SPEAKER_00: And what is most surprising is that, well, there's actually two things that are surprising when you actually track your time.
13:55
SPEAKER_00: The first thing is that you tend to spend a lot more time than you think you're spending on things that are not important.
14:01
SPEAKER_00: So you might think, oh, I only watch like three hours a week of Netflix.
14:05
SPEAKER_00: But then, you know, you you look at your time tracking chart, if you've been honest on it, and then you discover, oh my gosh, I'm I'm watching like eight hours of TV every week, uh, Disney Plus or Netflix or Hulu or whatever.
14:17
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but then the flip side of that is that sometimes we think that we're spending a lot of time on things that we're not actually spending that much time on.
14:25
SPEAKER_00: So you might think, oh my gosh, I'm spending hours on this client project when actually you're spending about half the time that you think you do.
14:33
SPEAKER_00: So the moral of the story here is that our minds trick us sometimes.
14:38
SPEAKER_00: And I think we underestimate the time that we're wasting and blowing, but we overestimate sometimes the amount of time that we're spending on the actual things that matter the writing, the client work if we're doing client work, and other things that can really help us move the ball forward.
14:54
SPEAKER_00: So the first thing is track your time.
14:57
SPEAKER_00: I would recommend doing this in 15-minute or at the very minimum 30-minute increments for two solid weeks.
15:05
SPEAKER_00: Number two is to plan your weeks and your days.
15:10
SPEAKER_00: Now, making a schedule seems like such a simple thing, but it's amazing how often we just go about our days running from task to task and putting out fires without actually acting intentionally.
15:21
SPEAKER_00: And we so often lose track of time because we're responding to other people instead of proactively using our time.
15:27
SPEAKER_00: And the best way to be intentional about using our time is to simply make a schedule.
15:32
SPEAKER_00: Now I like to plan in both weeks and in days.
15:35
SPEAKER_00: So every Sunday night I put together a list of the major tasks or projects that I want to accomplish during the week.
15:42
SPEAKER_00: And that list will usually include items for my day job, for my side business, as well as some household to-dos, like, you know, working on this project or fixing this thing or whatever it is.
15:53
SPEAKER_00: And then I plug those things into my weekly schedule.
15:56
SPEAKER_00: Now, of course, that also includes family time and uh family events if we're going to see somebody or we're having somebody over for dinner or or whatever it might be.
16:06
SPEAKER_00: So you can do that weekly, um, but daily is really where the rubber meets the road.
16:11
SPEAKER_00: Every morning I make a list of the major things that I need to accomplish that day in the order of the priority they need to be accomplished in.
16:19
SPEAKER_00: And then I plan out how I'm going to use my time.
16:21
SPEAKER_00: So I literally write down blocks of time and I plug those major tasks into that list.
16:27
SPEAKER_00: Now, do I always do I always follow the schedule?
16:30
SPEAKER_00: Well, the answer, of course, is no.
16:32
SPEAKER_00: There's usually interruptions, and sometimes a task takes more or less time than I anticipated, but that's totally okay.
16:39
SPEAKER_00: The important thing is that you intentionally think through how you're going to use your time for that day.
16:45
SPEAKER_00: And this alone can radically impact how you spend your time.
16:49
SPEAKER_00: Just being aware of what you actually have to get done and then plugging those projects and tasks into blocks of time that you have set aside for the week, that is a uh there's something magical and very, very powerful about that because just being aware of that, I think helps to make you more productive and efficient.
17:08
SPEAKER_00: Now, when you're planning your weeks and your days, it's important to create time in your schedule for writing.
17:13
SPEAKER_00: And I think our tendency is to be reactive to other people's demands.
17:16
SPEAKER_00: You know, we have emails, we have messages, we have things other people want us to do.
17:20
SPEAKER_00: But if you want to be more productive and write more, you've got to be proactive and intentional about using your time.
17:28
SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's go on to tip number three, which is using spare moments to read, to write, and create.
17:35
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you look at how you spend your minutes and your days, you'll probably find that you have lots of what I just call spare moments.
17:42
SPEAKER_00: Spare moments are those little chunks of time between other events.
17:46
SPEAKER_00: It'll be five minutes here or 10 or 15 minutes there.
17:50
SPEAKER_00: And we we tend to dismiss those as just kind of wasted little moments.
17:54
SPEAKER_00: But those can be very useful if you use those intentionally.
17:58
SPEAKER_00: Here are some examples of spare moments.
18:01
SPEAKER_00: These could be things like waiting at the doctor's office, waiting at the DMV to get your car license renewed, waiting for a meeting to start, waiting for somebody to arrive at a lunch meeting, waiting to pick up your kid from school, waiting for uh waiting in line at the grocery store, waiting for a movie to start.
18:18
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it could be a lot of different things.
18:20
SPEAKER_00: Notice that all these moments involve waiting.
18:24
SPEAKER_00: Now it's inevitable that you're gonna spend some of your time in life waiting for other people or waiting for things to start.
18:30
SPEAKER_00: You can't always avoid waiting, but you can determine how you're going to use that time.
18:35
SPEAKER_00: Are you gonna spend your time waiting passively or purposefully?
18:40
SPEAKER_00: And those spare moments are a potential gold mine for writing and for creating.
18:45
SPEAKER_00: You can take advantage of those moments, even just three or five minutes, to work on blog posts, to work on book outlines or a story or client work or whatever.
18:55
SPEAKER_00: Now, my writing tool of choice is Scrivener, which is a fantastic app that's created with writers in mind.
19:02
SPEAKER_00: And the desktop version of Scrivener is very robust, and that's what I use when I'm writing on my MacBook Pro.
19:07
SPEAKER_00: But whenever I'm not at my computer, I use this Scrivener iOS app on my iPhone to write.
19:12
SPEAKER_00: It's beautifully designed and it syncs seamlessly with the desktop app.
19:17
SPEAKER_00: So I recommend using Scrivener or at the very least using something like Evernote or even your Notes app on your phone.
19:23
SPEAKER_00: I mean, heck, you can even just open a new email and write it in an email and send that email to yourself.
19:28
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't really matter what you use.
19:30
SPEAKER_00: The point is to be productive and use that time wisely because if you don't control your schedule, somebody else will.
19:37
SPEAKER_00: Somebody will always be sending you emails.
19:39
SPEAKER_00: Somebody's always going to want something from you.
19:41
SPEAKER_00: There are always going to be messages there from Facebook and texts and other stuff.
19:45
SPEAKER_00: So be intentional and be purposeful in how you use that time.
19:51
SPEAKER_00: Let's go on to item number four here.
19:54
SPEAKER_00: The fourth time hack is using music to help you focus.
19:58
SPEAKER_00: And I think it's important to create the right kind of environment to help you do your best work.
20:03
SPEAKER_00: And I think one of the most overlooked elements of your environment is your sound.
20:08
SPEAKER_00: The right mix of music or ambient noise can help focus your mind and help you be more efficient and effective.
20:15
SPEAKER_00: So I like to mix it up depending on what kind of mood I'm in.
20:18
SPEAKER_00: There's several different kinds of things that I use in terms of background noise and music that really helps me focus.
20:24
SPEAKER_00: One thing that I really love to use is a site called Coffitivity, which is a it's a website that recreates the sounds of, you guessed it, a coffee shop.
20:34
SPEAKER_00: And I'm I'm really quite fond of this because it provides just the right amount of ambient noise.
20:39
SPEAKER_00: And the way that you spell that is C-O-F-F-I-T-I-V-I-T-Y.
20:45
SPEAKER_00: So it's coffitivity.com.
20:48
SPEAKER_00: It's free, it's free to use.
20:50
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you can upgrade, I think.
20:51
SPEAKER_00: Um, but the free version is great.
20:53
SPEAKER_00: There's a few different coffee house sounds.
20:54
SPEAKER_00: I mean, honestly, every coffee house sounds exactly the same.
20:57
SPEAKER_00: There's, you know, the coffee, whatever they call the coffee machines, espresso makers or whatever they are, that's making the steaming and coffee noises.
21:06
SPEAKER_00: You can, I'm showing my ignorance here, but uh the coffee machines, there's murmurings, there's people clinking spoons on coffee cups and that kind of stuff.
21:14
SPEAKER_00: And it's perfect because I find that a little bit of ambient and a little bit of crowd noise really helps me to to focus in.
21:22
SPEAKER_00: But when there's total silence, my mind just starts to get very, very distracted.
21:28
SPEAKER_00: So I think this is why people write in coffee houses a lot, because that ambient noise and that little bit of activity going on around you somehow, for some weird reason, really helps you to focus in.
21:38
SPEAKER_00: So coffee activity is something I love, and I also a lot of times use different playlists on Spotify.
21:45
SPEAKER_00: And I love working to the sounds of familiar movies that I love because there's just something about that that can help me get locked in as well.
21:53
SPEAKER_00: Uh specifically, I have a movie score playlist that I use, and this is just a huge playlist.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Playlist of movie scores from films like you know the Harry Potter movies, Star Wars, the Avengers movies, Batman movies, all that kind of stuff.
22:09
SPEAKER_00: So use whatever really works for you.
22:11
SPEAKER_00: But I tend to love those movie scores.
22:14
SPEAKER_00: And something else that I love is different focus playlists that Spotify has.
22:19
SPEAKER_00: There's one called Deep Focus that I use a lot, and there's gobs of playlists on there for studying, for white noise, even for sleeping and other kinds of things.
22:28
SPEAKER_00: So just get on Spotify and search focus or white noise or nature sounds or whatever it is that floats your boat.
22:35
SPEAKER_00: And I think you'll really enjoy some of those.
22:37
SPEAKER_00: Give those resources a try and see if those help you to focus in a little bit more and give you some background noise and some sounds that can help to kind of tame the distraction in your own mind and help you to focus.
22:51
SPEAKER_00: Okay, we've got three more here.
22:53
SPEAKER_00: The fifth time hack I want to share is to become an email ninja.
22:58
SPEAKER_00: Now I've got a question for you that's kind of a stupid question, but I'm gonna put it out there anyway.
23:03
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember when email used to be fun?
23:07
SPEAKER_00: I remember when I signed up with AOL 25 years ago, back in 1996.
23:13
SPEAKER_00: Some of you, like me, are old enough to remember getting those crazy uh CDs in the mail with AOL.
23:22
SPEAKER_00: They would I don't know how much money AOL spent on those CDs, but it seemed like every week you would get those crazy America Online CDs in the mail.
23:31
SPEAKER_00: And uh you would get so many of them you would have no idea what to do with them.
23:34
SPEAKER_00: I just ended up throwing most of them away.
23:36
SPEAKER_00: Um or you would use them as like a coaster for your glasses on your desk or you know, use them to th to play frisbee with or whatever.
23:45
SPEAKER_00: But you would just get gobs of those in the mail.
23:47
SPEAKER_00: And anybody like under 30 has no idea what I'm talking about, but that's okay.
23:51
SPEAKER_00: But when America Online first came out, uh, or at least when I signed up with it back in '96, I got an account and it was so much fun.
24:00
SPEAKER_00: You know, you would use your dial-up modem, it would make that weird noise like something was dying in outer space, and it would log on and you would hear that familiar voice say, You've got mail.
24:11
SPEAKER_00: And it was so exciting because you thought, oh my gosh, I've got electronic mail.
24:18
SPEAKER_00: Somebody sent me a message over the internet, and it was so cool because that was such a new and refreshing thing.
24:24
SPEAKER_00: And my, how times have changed.
24:26
SPEAKER_00: As we deal with dozens or even hundreds of emails a day, it's some sometimes not so much fun anymore.
24:33
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I mean, as much as I appreciate all the people in my life, sometimes I get a little overwhelmed with emails, and maybe you feel the same way as well.
24:41
SPEAKER_00: So here's a few guidelines to help us tame the email monster and recover some of that time that we can use for writing and more creative activities.
24:49
SPEAKER_00: So, three quick email things to consider here.
24:52
SPEAKER_00: Number one is I want to encourage you to unsubscribe from all email lists except for those that you truly find useful.
25:00
SPEAKER_00: And you can easily do this with a tool called unroll.me and literally go to the web address unroll.me.
25:09
SPEAKER_00: And you can sign up with the Gmail or Yahoo or whatever email address that you use, and that will then spit out a list of your email subscriptions, and you can on one page unsubscribe to all of them that you don't want anymore, and it's really, really cool.
25:23
SPEAKER_00: The way it's uh the way it's all organized.
25:26
SPEAKER_00: Then the cool thing is that the ones that remain on your list, unroll.me will send you one single email every day that's called a roll-up, where they literally roll up your emails into a daily digest.
25:40
SPEAKER_00: It's really, really cool.
25:41
SPEAKER_00: So give that a shot if you feel like you're overwhelmed with email subscriptions that are just clogging up your inbox constantly.
25:49
SPEAKER_00: So that's the first thing is unsubscribe from all email lists except what you find useful.
25:53
SPEAKER_00: Number two is to set specific times of the day to check email.
25:57
SPEAKER_00: It's really tempting to check it every few minutes, especially when it's available on your phone all the time.
26:02
SPEAKER_00: But this can be a good way to procrastinate and to avoid the hard work of actually writing or creating something.
26:09
SPEAKER_00: So have a few times during the day that you check your email.
26:12
SPEAKER_00: And then the third thing is that I want to give you just a few quick rules to process email by.
26:18
SPEAKER_00: I think I got these from Michael Hyatt.
26:20
SPEAKER_00: I don't remember because I've had these written down for a long time.
26:22
SPEAKER_00: So uh these came from Michael Hyatt.
26:24
SPEAKER_00: I want to give him credit if that's in fact where they came from.
26:27
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and here's just a few simple rules.
26:29
SPEAKER_00: If you can reply in under three minutes, do it then.
26:33
SPEAKER_00: Uh if the email would take more than three minutes to write a response, save the message and then create an item on your task list.
26:40
SPEAKER_00: And uh kind of a rule of thumb here is not to use your inbox as a task list.
26:44
SPEAKER_00: I'm actually really bad about that and need to get out of that habit.
26:48
SPEAKER_00: Uh another rule is that if you don't need the email, just delete it.
26:51
SPEAKER_00: Another rule is if somebody else needs to take action on it, forward it to them and then archive the message.
26:57
SPEAKER_00: And then another one, and I love this one, if you need to save an email, store it in a saved items folder, or what's even better is to forward this to your Evernote account.
27:07
SPEAKER_00: And then what you do is if you use Evernote, you forward this to your Evernote email address, and then at the end of the subject line, put a little at symbol and then put the name of the Evernote notebook where that is going, and that'll go straight into that notebook.
27:19
SPEAKER_00: It's a super cool Evernote feature, and I use this, gosh, probably uh 10 or 15 times every single day, at least during the week.
27:29
SPEAKER_00: Uh, this is such a cool feature where you can put those emails into Evernote folders where they correspond with specific things.
27:36
SPEAKER_00: And I just really, really love those.
27:39
SPEAKER_00: Those are some cool rules that that really have been helpful to me, and I hope they're helpful to you.
27:44
SPEAKER_00: Remember, when it comes to email, the more time that you spend answering email, the less time you can actually spend creating.
27:51
SPEAKER_00: But the less time you spend on email, the more time you can spend creating.
27:55
SPEAKER_00: Well, here is number six, and that is use your drive time for creating and learning.
28:02
SPEAKER_00: You know, according to the US Census Bureau, the average commute time for Americans is 25.4 minutes, and that is almost five hours of time in the car every single week.
28:14
SPEAKER_00: My own commute to my day job is about 30 minutes each way.
28:19
SPEAKER_00: Now, your time in the car might be more or less, but assuming that you're about average, what could you do with five hours of time every week?
28:27
SPEAKER_00: Well, one of the best ways to use this time is to spend it creating something.
28:31
SPEAKER_00: But how do you do that in a car?
28:33
SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm not a big advocate of, you know, messing with your phone while you're driving because a lot of accidents are caused this way.
28:41
SPEAKER_00: But what I am a big advocate of is using your hands-free Siri feature if you have an iPhone to just say, hey Siri, take a note, or hey Siri, do this or that.
28:51
SPEAKER_00: And that's a great way to make notes about things and even write and create on your phone.
28:56
SPEAKER_00: That can be super, super helpful.
28:58
SPEAKER_00: Another way to make use of your drive time is to listen to podcasts or audio books that can help you become a better writer, a better leader, or a better creative person.
29:07
SPEAKER_00: And literally, you can get the equivalent of a part-time college or grad school education without leaving your car or taking up any extra time.
29:15
SPEAKER_00: I do this constantly and man, it is so helpful.
29:19
SPEAKER_00: Right now I'm uh, for example, listening to the book Green Lights by Matthew McConaughey.
29:24
SPEAKER_00: And man, it's such a fun, interesting book.
29:27
SPEAKER_00: And I'm just doing that as I'm driving to work every day.
29:29
SPEAKER_00: And I think it's a wonderful way to get an education, to help yourself be more creative, and to listen to really, really good content.
29:37
SPEAKER_00: So if you spend any amount of time in the car or on the bus or on a train every week, you have a great opportunity for self-improvement by learning, but also by creating, by just using the hands-free features on your phone.
29:50
SPEAKER_00: Then finally, the last time hack that I want to share related to writing is simply to create a sense of urgency.
29:59
SPEAKER_00: A few years ago, I read this awesome book called Chasing Daylight by an author named Eugene O'Kelly, and it's an incredibly moving memoir of the final three and a half months of his life.
30:10
SPEAKER_00: At age 53, Eugene O'Kelly was diagnosed with brain cancer, and he was given a short time to live.
30:16
SPEAKER_00: And the diagnosis radically changed his life, and he decided to be intentional about wrapping up his most important relationships as his life drew to a close.
30:26
SPEAKER_00: And as you can imagine, a diagnosis of brain cancer would create an immense sense of urgency and change anybody's life instantly.
30:34
SPEAKER_00: Well, you may not have a serious illness that's threatening to take your life in the next few months, but the truth is that we all have limited time on this earth.
30:42
SPEAKER_00: Within the ebb and flow of everyday life, we're not always aware of the passage of time.
30:47
SPEAKER_00: And we ignore the most important things in order to focus on trivial things because we always think, oh, I'll just take care of those important things tomorrow.
30:56
SPEAKER_00: But the truth is that we don't have any guarantee that tomorrow is going to come.
31:00
SPEAKER_00: We have to create our own sense of urgency by realizing that every day matters and every moment counts.
31:07
SPEAKER_00: Well, as you've seen by now, as we've gone through these time hacks in this podcast episode, the main idea here is not about making time.
31:14
SPEAKER_00: It's really about making the kind of life that you want.
31:18
SPEAKER_00: When you imagine the best version of your life, what does it look like?
31:21
SPEAKER_00: Who are you with?
31:23
SPEAKER_00: Where do you live?
31:24
SPEAKER_00: What have you accomplished?
31:25
SPEAKER_00: What have you created?
31:26
SPEAKER_00: And as you think about the future, consider this.
31:29
SPEAKER_00: Your life is really nothing more than a collection of days.
31:33
SPEAKER_00: It's a collection of many thousands of days, to be sure, but they're days nonetheless.
31:38
SPEAKER_00: As the writer Annie Dillard once said, how we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.
31:45
SPEAKER_00: So whatever good things you want in life are going to come about because of what happens in the context of your days.
31:52
SPEAKER_00: And the bright future that you imagine is not out there somewhere.
31:55
SPEAKER_00: It's right here and right now.
31:59
SPEAKER_00: Well, I really like what the author Austin Cleon says.
32:02
SPEAKER_00: He wrote, Maybe success is just a matter of how the reality of the days match up to the ones in your imagination.
32:12
SPEAKER_00: Every day you and I are given the gift of 24 hours.
32:15
SPEAKER_00: We all have the exact same amount of time every day.
32:18
SPEAKER_00: So what really matters is how you use them.
32:21
SPEAKER_00: So use them well.
32:23
SPEAKER_00: Well, I encourage you to take one of these tips that I've shared in this podcast episode and put it to work this week.
32:29
SPEAKER_00: Whether it's creating a greater sense of urgency, whether it's using your drive time, whether it's becoming an email ninja or using music to help you focus, or some of the other tips that I've mentioned here.
32:47
SPEAKER_00: So I encourage you to put this into practice.
32:49
SPEAKER_00: There's no promo at the end of this episode.
32:51
SPEAKER_00: I just really want you to think about what I've mentioned here today.
32:54
SPEAKER_00: And I hope that this has been helpful to you.
32:56
SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for listening, and I will see you tomorrow.